Canada Files | What Chaps My Hide

I’ve heard this statement more than a couple of times from more than one person. This is arrogant, self-important idea that in the United States everyone is forced to give up their varied and proud cultures and diversity in order to fit in while Canadians actually value cultural differences and allow them to coexist in society. It is the idea that you can’t be both "American" and your native culture at the same time – you must give up your home culture, while in Canada this is not the case.

I think the reason it irks me so is that while I think the US deserves a lot of flak for a lot of things, this is certainly not one of them. In fact, the US’s diversity and inclusiveness of all sorts is one of our greatest strengths.

Americans often stick maple leaves to their baggage so as to look like Canadians while travelling

Scientific Study

I emailed maybe 25 friends (about half of them US citizens, the other half US residents) the following question:

While travelling outside the US, have you ever met Americans who have pasted Canadian flags onto their bags (or have you done this yourself)?

Their answers (in order of arrival):

no

NO…

No….no….and no…why would someone ever do something so silly?

That story sounds vaguely familiar, but I think it is probably some sort of urban myth. I have never met such a person.

NO No No,….not a Canadian PLEASE !!

Uhhh, no?

No. Almost every Canadian I’ve met outside of the US does have the maple leaf on their gear.

i’ve not seen an American with a sticker of maple leaf anywhere but I’ve seen plenty with those marijuana leaf stickers

no, never heard of it.

No.

Dude, most Americans I know would sooner kill themselves than paste the Canadian flag on their bags!!!!

Oh I do it all the time. It’s the latest craze.

Never

They must be crazy… AMericans pasting Canadian flags on their luggage? I assume this must be for “safety precautions” of some sort.. but Id rather be unsafe than Canadian! 🙂 hehehe So to answer your
question, no… I have never heard of this.

NO. Only Canadians sew the Canadian flags on their backpack.

Never posted a flag on my bag. Only Canadians do that!!!! They don’t want to be “misunderstood” for Americans. How unintelligent is that!

I have been cited "reports" and "studies" that have "proven" this "fact", but mysteriously, nobody can actually produce anything more concrete than hearsay. I have been told that McCalls ran something a little while back and there was a guy on TV that interviewed a bunch of Americans last year… but nobody can seem to remember which issue of McCalls or what TV show or which station or who did this interviewing… To counter this, I did my own scientific study (right)

I honestly find this statement so ridiculous that it is embarrassing. Any American with any pride in their country and respect for themselves (which is most of us) would not dishonor themselves and the country by attempting such a feat.

This may come as a surprise to the Canadians, but Americans don’t want to be Canadians.

While I am sure that a few pathetic souls have attempted this… in any sample set you will always have a few exceptions to a rule… I think it is a slight exaggeration to say that "all" or "many" (or even "a few") Americans paste Canadian flags to their bags.

Canadians complain that all Americans are reckless cowboys that do what they want without caring what people think… and then there is this story about Americans wanting to look like Canadians… it seems that one can’t have it both ways…

Canadian Money
It is a little known fact that in the early ’60s, the Canadian government nationalized a Hasbro factory in Ottawa. They immediately stopped production on the Monopoly board game and converted the factory into a mint to print money. Surprisingly no work was required to make this conversion.

…or so I’ve been lead to understand… 😉

The aspects of Canadian money that annoys me the most:

pictures of punk-ass kids playing hockey

bad poetry

French – despite what some say, Canada is NOT a bi-lingual country!

However, far and away the most annoying thing is the lack of a one dollar bill.

With one and two dollar coins in circulation and NO equivalent bills, it makes a handful of change have far more value than simple change should have – a *small* handful of coins can easily be worth 10-20 dollars! Additionally, money seems to siphon away that much faster because change is inherently valued less than bills are… if I buy a 35¢ stick of gum with a $5 bill, I am left with only change…

As I recall my monetary history – all money used to be coinage and money’s value was in the value of the metal contained therein… this was of course, very unwieldy and soon evolved into carrying essentially what were IOUs at a specific bank for said metal which later evolved in to bills backed by the government. This allowed us to carry around lots of money and not have to be olympic weight-lifters to do it. Canada is specifically reversing that trend. By eliminating the $1 (and $2) bill, they are going back to a methodology that monetary evolution specifically took us away from. Now, rumor has it, they are thinking of eliminating the $5 bill and replacing it with a coin!

The reasonings for doing this (in the Canadian’s government’s defence) are understandable. From my trip to the US mint, we learned that a US $1 bill will stay in circulation for 18 months. a $20 bill 5 years while coinage will last 20-30 years. Obviously the cost of producing money is reduced by using more coins.

And while I am on the topic of money… It may be my imagination, but I am pretty sure that most of the paper money in Canada is rattier and more beat up than the average US bill – this leads to one of two conclusions, either Canadians keep their bills in circulation longer than in the US, Canadians abuse their money more than in the US.

Air Canada

If there was ever an example of why monopolies are bad, this is it. They are obscenely expensive, offer flights that don’t accrue frequent flyer mileage (in exchange for a cheaper ticket – try finding *that* in the US!), and their customer support is terrible.

And finally…

The taxes are too high

They drive way too f**king slow

Their cops actually enforce their speeding laws – I have been driving for 14 years in the United States, I have been pulled over for speeding maybe twice… I have been driving in Canada, all in all, not more than a year, and I have already been pulled over for speeding!